


trying to fuckin' scream but the words won't come out

by acetheticallyy (jacquesdernier)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Character Study, Coming Out, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 11:56:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6802798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacquesdernier/pseuds/acetheticallyy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He feels things, he does, feels them so much it hurts sometimes, it's just that...he's scared that he might feel too much. He's scared that if he says what he is feeling, people will be put off by his sincerity and they'll leave him. It's easier if he doesn't say anything at all. So he doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	trying to fuckin' scream but the words won't come out

**Author's Note:**

> hey so a few things to take care of before we start:
> 
> 1\. this is tagged as "canon divergence" simply bc I might have accidentally diverged from canon a little bc I may have forgotten a few minor details here and there but like for the most part it sticks to canon (also I'm like.......preemptively declaring that this isn't gonna be canon I guess lmao)
> 
> 2\. there is a total of two anxiety attacks in this fic, and mentions of others, none of which are very detailed but it may be best to skip this one if you feel like it's going to bother you
> 
> 3\. there are a million and one different themes for jack's anxiety in this fic, all of which I am very proud of, so if you can spot them then kudos to you
> 
> and last but not least, a formal disclaimer that these characters do not belong to me in any way whatsoever! the sweet hockey bros of omgcp were created by ngozi and I merely fiddled around with them a little

The term which is generally used to describe Jack Zimmermann is "hockey robot," and that's not entirely true. He feels things, he does, feels them so much it hurts sometimes, it's just that...he's scared that he might feel too much. He's scared that if he says what he is feeling, people will be put off by his sincerity and they'll leave him. It's easier if he doesn't say anything at all. So he doesn't.

And he's heard the whole spiel before, so if you could spare him the lecture, it would be very much appreciated. _"It's not good to keep everything bottled up, Jack, you need to communicate, Jack, you have to let people in, Jack, don't be afraid of your feelings, Jack_ _."_ Yeah, well, it's not good to be left all alone, either, because you said one thing in the wrong way with too much intensity and too much meaning and so they all packed up and jumped ship. And he isn't afraid of how he feels,  _thank you very much_. He's afraid of other people being afraid of how he feels. It's different. And it's a whole hell of a lot scarier.

Because when you are scared of your own feelings, you can fix it. When you're the one that has the problem, you can get over it. But when you're afraid of how another person will react, there is no solution--you can't fix it. There is no way to predict how they will react and there is no way to control how they will react, either. And so, the only solution left is for you to assume the worst and prepare for it. And when that happens, when you expect the worst, you end up retreating in on yourself and you're left with this cocktail of emotions swimming around your chest, building and building and building until, eventually, you explode.

So that's about where Jack is at the moment, but nobody else would know that. Because when you expect the worst, you never get a chance to talk about it.

* * *

The whole thing started when he got his first jersey with his father's name on it. Well, to be honest, the whole thing started the exact moment he was born, and probably even before that. Probably even way back to when Alicia Zimmermann had her first sonogram and they found out that she and her husband were having a bouncing baby boy. But you can't strap skates to a baby and expect him to hit a hockey puck into a net and win the Stanley Cup. So the whole thing started when Jack was seven years old and he received his first real hockey jersey--his _favorite_ hockey jersey.

At seven years old, running his fingers over the letters of his father's name--his name, too, but nobody ever knew the name Zimmermann because of him--the pressure inside of Jack began to build. You couldn't strap skates on a baby and tell him to win the Stanley Cup, but a seven year old boy with his first hockey jersey resting neatly on his shoulders? He was plenty old enough.

* * *

The thing about Jack is this: he loves hockey. It's the one thing he can put his whole heart and soul into without feeling like someone will judge him for it. Hockey doesn't give a damn about the intensity of his feelings. And he's  _good_ at it. So of course he likes hockey. What he doesn't like about hockey, however, is the anxiety and the pressure that comes with being the son of a world renowned hockey star and the winner of not just one, but two Stanley Cups.

His father never pressured him, of course not. But he may as well have. Just his name was a constant pressure. No one could mention Jack Zimmermann without also preceding his name with the words "the son of Bad Bob Zimmermann." Jack couldn't even put his own jersey on without feeling the weight of his last name settle heavily on his shoulders. And it only got worse.

At first, he felt the pressure like a slight twinge in his shoulders. It was nothing, ignorable even. But then he got older. Then he got serious about it. Then he started  _actually playing_. What started as a joking "you got a lot to live up to, kid," at family parties suddenly turned into long discussions on ESPN. What was just something fun to do, something that he could be as passionate as he wanted about, without repercussions, turned into this large, heaving monster breathing down his neck. He felt like an idiot, like a child constantly checking under his bed for the Boogeyman. Except this situation was worse. The Boogeyman wasn't real, and he never would be. Jack's impending failure, however, was very,  _very_ real.

Before he knew it, it was almost time for the draft. He didn't make it to that one. He'd rather not talk about it.

* * *

Jack might have thought that going to college would get the sports analysts on TV off his back for a little while, and if he had, then he would have been wrong. The thing is, Jack doesn't operate like that. He expected this to happen. Why wouldn't it? He's learned by now that putting his heart and soul into everything he does would come back to bite him in the ass eventually. This even, apparently, applied to hockey.

Now, he still loved hockey. He could never  _stop_ loving anything. That was his problem--he felt too much and once he started, he couldn't stop. With most other things, he would retreat into himself. He never stopped feeling, but he usually stopped outwardly expressing it. Hockey was different. Hockey  _mattered._ They all expected him to fail again. They all said his time at Samwell was holding him back. They were wrong. He wanted to  _prove_ to them that they were wrong.

In some small way, he wanted to prove  _himself_ wrong. He wasn't going to fail again.

And it was  _working._ Removing himself from the real hockey world while he went to college was actually helping. His same old problems were still there, but on a much smaller scale than usual. They were  _dissipating_. He was  _happy_. It seemed like maybe he had a good thing going after all.

That was when, of course, everything started to move backwards. Just when everything was beginning to settle and Jack finally felt like he could breathe easily again for the first time in years, something had to come along and derail his whole routine. It was typical.

* * *

Technically the some _thing_ was more of a some _one_. In his junior year at Samwell, the men's hockey team sees the addition of a new freshman. This, in and of itself, is not bothersome. It happens every year, it's routine. There were new freshman on the team when Jack was a sophomore, and the year before that, he had been a freshman himself. So it's not the addition of a new player that bothers him. It's more than that. It's this recruit in particular.

Eric Bittle, the small blond boy from Georgia, sweeps into Samwell, all smiles and baking a record amount of pies in the Haus kitchen, and Jack, for the life of him, can't pinpoint exactly what about the boy makes him so uneasy. All he knows is that the very day Bittle shows up, everything changes. And Jack likes him well enough, that's not the problem. The problem is the bizarre twisting in his gut. It's unnerving.

* * *

Jack misinterprets the feeling, at first. At first, he thinks it's the typical anxiety running through him, because that Bittle kid has no clue how to take a check and how are they supposed to win if one of their players freezes up whenever someone skates too close to him? How is Jack supposed to prove everyone wrong if they don't win? So he does what he does best and turns on his best Hockey Captain voice and tries to help the kid improve. But it doesn't work. Bittle still can't take a check and it's getting closer and closer to their first game.

He tries something else. It works. He thinks the twist in his gut will go away and things will progress as normal. That's not what happens.

* * *

They tell Jack that he is a better player when he's with Bittle. Jack _hates_ that. He hates that he has to rely on someone else so heavily. More than that, he hates that everyone seems to think that playing with Bittle has helped him improve. Jack was  _already good_ at hockey. He didn't need anyone's help to improve. He especially didn't need the help of someone who  _he_ had to help so that  _they_ could improve. It was ridiculous.

The twist in his gut is still there and this time Jack tells himself that it is anger. And he  _is_ angry. Contrary to popular belief, the team had never seen Jack angry before. It wasn't that he had never been angry, it's just that he had never outwardly expressed his anger before--he never had to. Usually, when he was mad about something, the anger was directed inward. He was always more angry at himself than he was at anyone else.

So it is weird. There is always an odd tension hanging around the team now, and it frustrates Jack even more because  _how is the team supposed to win if they're so keyed up with other things_? And he knows it's his fault. Jack knows that everyone is tense because he has been in a less than stellar mood for the past couple of weeks. He's just  _so angry_. It goes on for a while. He ignores Bittle, Bittle pretends not to be upset, and Jack feels bad for ruining the team. It is an endless cycle that just keeps going.

In the end, it is Shitty that pulls him out of it. It starts, as most things involving Shitty do, with Shitty climbing through his window even though their rooms are connected. They don't say anything for a while because Jack is working on a paper and Shitty is generally content to just sit there.

Shitty eventually breaks the silence with a simple "you fucked up, brah" and normally Jack would bristle at those words, but this is Shitty and so it works. The words don't bother him as much as they would if it were anyone else. He nods and Shitty responds with "you gotta fix it." Jack nods again.

That's it for a while. Jack makes an effort with Bittle, because he really does like the kid and he has had the time to realize that maybe icing him out was not Jack's best move. So he fixes it. They become friends. Jack has to admit to himself that yes, he does play a better game when Bittle is on his line. There's no use denying it. He tries to let Bittle know as much, but it's hard to get the words out when he's spent so long avoiding telling people how he feels. It ends up stilted, weird. He seems to get his point across though, and it works. They become friends. Jack realizes that there's no problem letting other people help him.

Well, sometimes. He still has trouble accepting help occasionally.

* * *

 The thing is, accepting help from Bittle is easy. Probably easier than it should be. Easy enough that, when they take a class together the next year, Jack asks for his assistance without even fully processing what he's doing. But it makes sense, he thinks. The assignment is to bake something. Jack is hopeless at cooking pasta, let alone a baked good. Bittle is magic with pie crusts and an oven. It was the logical move to make.

And Jack winds up having fun. It is, perhaps, the most fun he has ever had while completing a school assignment. It's actually rather relaxing, and rather than berate himself for messing up the pie crusts, he  _laughs_. The small blond is just trying so hard to prove that Jack  _isn't_ screwing up his project, and Jack finds it genuinely hilarious. Bittle retaliates by throwing flour in his face.

They end up talking about the NHL while they put the pies in to bake and begin to clean up. Usually, thinking about signing for a team makes Jack nervous and he feels like a million little fire ants are crawling underneath his skin. In the Haus kitchen, getting pie crust out from under his fingernails and with flour on his cheeks, it doesn't seem half so scary. If Jack was to be honest with himself, he would admit that probably the fact that he's talking to Bittle is the reason he finds it so easy. But Jack  _isn't_ being honest with himself. Or if he is, he's being oblivious.

The twisting in his stomach starts up again, but it's different this time. Jack chalks it up to the fact that he's happy. He's not entirely wrong.

* * *

Jack chooses Providence. The Falconers aren't a big team, but he's glad about that; it's what he wanted, a small team to start out his career. And Providence has a lot going for it, he thinks. For one, it's closer. Closer to what, exactly, he isn't quite sure, but he knows that he wants to be close. It was the option that kept him the closest, and so he took it.

When the team finds out, they're excited. They talk about how close it is, how Jack had better come visit Samwell, seeing as how he'll only be an hour or so away. Jack agrees. That's probably what he wanted to be closer to when he chose Providence. The way he's staring at the barely contained smile on Bittle's face says otherwise. He just doesn't know that yet.

But don't worry, he'll get there.

* * *

Admittedly, it takes Jack a while to get there. Not just "a few hours from his Providence decision" a while, either. It's more like "a few minutes before he gets ready to take off after graduation" a while.

He can't quite put his finger on it, but he feels like he forgot something. Like maybe he forgot some _one_. But that doesn't seem possible. He's said goodbye to everyone, already. The only person that he had been missing was Bittle, and Jack had just parted ways with him, saying goodbye before Bittle headed back to the Haus for a few last minute things that he needed to wrap up. So why did Jack keep thinking he'd forgotten someone?

By the time Jack's dad asks if he's ready to go, Jack is already running through the team roster, trying to see who he had left out. He's run through the roster no less than three times, and no one is missing. For some reason, his brain keeps jumping back to Bittle, but he  _knows_ he didn't forget Bittle--Jack just saw him.

"I feel like I'm missing someone," he says, and he tries not to think too much about the double meaning of those words.

For all that Jack doesn't know what's bothering him, his father seems to. The light in Jack's father's eyes takes on a knowing gleam, and he ends up quoting his uncle at him for approximately the one millionth time in his life. Usually, when his dad quotes his uncle, it is just a quote. Usually, it is just something that he says to sound wise and get a chuckle out of his mom at the same time his uncle groans and says "Bob, please, that quote is going to haunt me for the rest of my life already, please let it die." But this time, something snaps into place.

With the bells of the carillons in the distance acting as the soundtrack to his realization, Jack figures out who he's missing.

* * *

He's not sure how he didn't notice sooner. Well, he is, but he isn't going to talk about that. He prefers to avoid  _thinking_ about it, as well, so for all intents and purposes, he is not quite sure how he didn't notice it sooner.

 That twist in his gut, it was never nerves or frustration or anger. Jack was right in declaring it happiness, but he didn't know in what way. And the sharp tug in his insides when Bittle got checked and went down  _hard_ , it wasn't just worry for his teammate, it was something more than that. The way his hands itched afterwards, begging him to pull his gloves off and just go for it, that  _meant_ something. It all meant something.

Because the thing with always keeping your emotions hidden from scrutiny is that sometimes you forget how to interpret them. Sometimes you're so scared of what they might mean or how people might react to them that you don't even let yourself become fully cognizant of what they are. You push them down and you let yourself forget about it until suddenly you can't even tell that you've been kind of in love with your teammate all year until your dad quotes your uncle at your graduation ceremony.

The minute everything falls into place, Jack's breath rushes out of him all at one, taking the form of a soft "oh." He takes off with barely a backward glance, calling out to his father that he'll be back soon, not really sure what language he's speaking in and finding himself unable to care.

* * *

When he gets there, Bittle's room is empty. For one heartbreaking moment, Jack thinks that he's left. He fears that Bittle is already gone off to Georgia and Jack is so sure that he's lost his chance until he hears a small whisper of noise from his old room across the hall.

The noise, blessedly, comes from Bittle. Jack lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. Bittle has his headphones in and does not quite notice that Jack is there until Jack is standing right behind him. When he turns, Jack's heart breaks just a little. There are tracks on Bittle's face that betray the fact that he had been crying recently. He doesn't let Jack know that, though. Instead, he asks if Jack is missing anything and how he is doing and won't he be late?

Yes, Jack thinks, he will be late. Which is why, in his old bedroom with his graduation robes still on and barely audible pop music emanating from Bittle's headphones, Jack carefully takes the blonde's face between his hands. He calls him Bitty, and it is not until the diminutive falls from his lips, unbidden, that he realizes it is the first time he has called Bitty by anything other than his last name. The significance of it all is not lost on Jack.

Bitty gasps a little when Jack says his name like that, and his eyes widen and Jack falls in love with him a little bit more, then. Jack says his name again, a little softer. It's only been a few minutes, really, since Jack has known, and he's surprised by how normal this feels, how right it is.

The very moment their lips connect, Jack figures that probably this is the happiest that anyone has ever been. The twisting in his stomach is still there, but he knows what it is now, and it scares him to put a name on it like that because it is all too soon to be promising anything, but Jack finds that he really doesn't care. For now, for once, he doesn't care how intense his emotions are or what other people might think of them. In a little while, that might change, but for now Jack is perfectly content.

Jack pulls away for a moment and Bitty still has his head tilted upward, eyes still closed and lips still parted. One hand is on Jack's shoulder and the other is curled loosely in his robes. Jack finds the whole thing incredibly endearing. He kisses Bitty again, softer this time and a moment later, his phone buzzes in his pocket. He tries to ignore it, but it buzzes again and the fact of the matter is that if he doesn't leave now, he will miss dinner and, subsequently, he will miss his flight back home. The notion of staying with Bitty a little longer is tempting. He could arrive late, book a ticket for another flight. It would not, he thinks, be an altogether terrible idea. But he has to get home and get his stuff together to get to Providence so that he can play hockey. It is a tough decision to make, but eventually, reason wins out. He  _really_ has to go.

Bitty looks disappointed when Jack tells him that he has to go and for a minute, Jack reconsiders his decision. Jack promises that he'll text him later, even though Jack never does that unless it's to respond to the team group text or to let his dad know that he'll be running a little late. Bitty seems a bit confused, and maybe slightly dazed, and Jack feels bad for piling this all onto him so soon only to leave a few minutes later, but he can't find it in himself to regret his decision.

"I'll text you." He repeats this what seems to be a million times before he leaves. Before he even hits the street, Jack's phone is in his hands, thumbs typing out a message. As Jack makes his way down the sidewalk leading from the haus to the street, Jack keeps his promise.

 **To: Bittle**  
**[Sent May 25, 2015, 5:45 PM]**  
  
_Hi._

* * *

Their first Skype date goes a little like this:

Jack has no idea how to turn the damn thing on. You would think that someone who spent the last year working with a camera would be able to figure out how to set up a video chat, but it has been twenty minutes of pressing buttons and clicking and listening to Bitty's laughter ring through his laptop speakers, and Jack still hasn't figured out how to get the video working. The good news is, he figured out the audio, which means he can hear every single one of Bitty's chirps loud and clear.

"Jack, honey, you gotta press the button that says 'video.' It looks like a camcorder?"

"Bits, I'm telling you, there is no button that says that."

"Exactly how outdated  _is_ the technology you're using, sweetheart?"

Jack can't see Bitty, but Bitty can see him, so Jack promptly glares into the camera. That gets him another laugh and he tries not to smile too wide. Jack thinks that he'd probably do anything to hear that sound for the rest of his life. And isn't  _that_ a thought--getting to hear the sound of Bitty's laughter for the rest of his life. Jack is sure that Bitty can see the blood rise to his cheeks just then, and he is proven right when he hears Bitty's voice, tinny though his computer, ask "your air conditioning stop working over there, or am I just that pretty sounding?" The blush gets worse. Bitty laughs again.

And the chirps just keep coming. "Sweetheart, you know I think you have a beautiful face, but you are way too close to the camera right now." "Are you squinting? Is Jack Zimmermann, future hockey legend, actually squinting at his computer screen?" "Honey, are you sure you don't need glasses, the button is literally right there, you probably looked at it ten times by now."

Twenty minutes later and Jack has relented to sending Bitty a screenshot of his computer screen, getting chirped at the whole way through because Bitty had to walk him through the process ("I'm dating an old man, I swear" (Jack chooses to focus on the part where Bitty says that they are dating)). Bitty sends him back a screenshot with the button circled in red and little exclamation points drawn all around it. The message he sends back with it says "Lord, you really are blind. Don't you need good eyesight to play hockey? I'm sure Holster will let you borrow his glasses if you ask nicely."

Finally, he gets to video to work. Bitty's face fills his screen and for a minute, Jack forgets to breathe. He wants to say hi, or to tell Bitty that he looks good, but all that comes out is "wow."

"Wow to you, too," Bitty chuckles in reply. "Your apartment looks nice, you settling in okay?"

Jack says that yes, he is. What he does not say is that Bitty can come over any time he wants and that Jack deliberately chose the apartment with the best kitchen, just for him. He absolutely does not mention that the kitchen is already stocked or that he keeps a drawer in his bedroom completely empty in case Bitty wants to stay for a weekend. They have only been dating for a week or two now, and Jack doesn't want to scare him into leaving.

What he does, in lieu of all that, is lift up the laptop to show Bitty the view from his bedroom window. He has to admit, aside from the kitchen, the image of he and Bitty sitting side by side on the small balcony kind of sold him on the place. At least, he has to admit it to himself. He doesn't admit it to Bitty, at least not yet. Soon, he thinks. Maybe. As easy as Bitty is to talk to, as much as he knows, logically, that Bitty wouldn't hurt him, these are things he has thought about people before. That time, he was wrong.

He knows that he won't be wrong this time, or at least he  _hopes_ that he won't be wrong this time, but that doesn't stop him from being apprehensive.

It is hours before either of them is ready to disconnect the call. And even then, the only thing that makes them disconnect is that it is twelve in the morning and Jack has to be up early to meet the team and get settled in at the rink. In the end, they don't even really disconnect. Instead, Bitty falls asleep on his side in the middle of trying to explain the new recipe he had been working on that day.

Jack does not smile fondly at Bitty for a few minutes afterward, watching the steady rise and fall of his boyfriend's chest as he sleeps. He does not think about how incredibly lucky his is to have Bitty, how incredibly  _happy_ he is to have Bitty, as he blinks in disbelief at the clock on his wall and realizes that they had been talking for the better part of the last five hours. And Jack most certainly does not whisper a quiet "good night, Bits, I love you" before he ends the call and falls asleep himself.

He  _doesn't_.

(He does.)

* * *

 It is a month later, give or take, when it happens. Bitty is talking about his counseling job at a summer camp, about how cute he thought the kids were. And isn't  _that_ a thought, Jack thinks. Bitty with  _kids_. That's not what gets him, though. Well, not entirely. He'd be lying if he said that the mental image wasn't part of it.

Bitty was sitting back against the pillows on his own bed, stuffed bunny in his lap, hands gesturing wildly as he talked, and a huge grin on his face. It was  _aodrable_. Jack couldn't help himself. He smiled softly and said "wow, I love you."

Now it wasn't the first time he had said this. It also wasn't the first time he had said it  _out loud_ , directly to Bitty. It was, however, the first time he had ever said it out loud to Bitty while Bitty was full conscious and awake to hear him.

Bitty's eyes have grown wide and he stops mid sentence. Jack's stomach immediately drops. That was  _not_ supposed to happen.

Jack feels like he has to scramble to fix everything. Logically, Jack knows that there is nothing to fix, that he has done nothing other than express how he was feeling, and that is not wrong. But the thing about his anxiety is that it is hardly ever logical. And right now, his anxiety is making his hands shake and he has to clench them in the fabric of his jeans so that they stop. Right now, his anxiety is telling him that he shouldn't have done that, because now Bitty knows and now Bitty has stopped talking and now he might leave. Because Jack said he loved him and it was probably way too much way too soon, and that's what happens when you tell people you care about how you feel about them: they leave.

"Jack? Honey?" Bitty's voice breaks into his awareness through the speakers on his laptop. "Are you okay?"

How long has he been sitting there, staring unfocused into the camera, his full attention given to his shaking hands and the thoughts swirling around in his head like a mantra;  _I'm sorry. Please don't leave_.

Jack finally gets his mouth to start working. "I'm sorry," is what comes out.

Bitty cocks his head to the side, squints at Jack a little bit. "Now what on Earth do you have to be sorry for?"

"It's too much, it's--" Jack shakes his head, trying to clear out the cobwebs of his anxiety enough to speak. "I shouldn't have--it's too fast. It's been what, a--a month? I'm sorry, I shouldn't--"

"I'm stopping you right there, Jack Zimmermann. You're crazy if you think I haven't been in love with you since the day you ran halfway across campus just to kiss me before you left to pack up your things in Montreal."

"I'm--what?" Jack stops himself short. That couldn't be right. It  _sounded_ like Bitty had just said--

"Jack, sweetheart, I love you too," Bitty tells him, an amused smile playing at his lips. "Now maybe some other time you can tell me why on Earth you'd think I would mind, but for now I want you to know that you  _never_ have to apologize for telling me how you feel. 'Specially not if it's something like that, you hear?"

Jack feels a weight lift off his chest. His hands stop shaking and he gradually releases his grip on his jeans, straightening out his fingers and letting the muscles in his hands relax. He nods.

"So, summer camp, eh?"

Bitty gives him a smile and the next hour and a half are devoted to Bitty recounting the time he was in charge of arts and crafts for two afternoons and the kids kept trying to redecorate him instead of the birdhouses they were supposed to be focusing on. This time, when they end the call, Jack tells Bitty he loves him  _before_ he falls asleep and Bitty's smile grows ten times brighter as he returns the sentiment.

Jack's hands don't shake and his breath doesn't come in short, staggered gasps. He falls asleep perfectly content.

* * *

"I was nineteen," Jack starts.

Bitty looks confused. "Me too?"

Jack would probably laugh at that, if he wasn't so scared out of his mind right now. Instead, he shakes his head. "No, Bitty. I was nineteen. It was almost time for the draft. And, well, you know how that ended up."

Understanding dawns across Bitty's face. "Jack, honey, you don't have to do this right now. Not if you're uncomfortable."

The thing is, Jack is pretty sure he will  _always_ be uncomfortable regarding this subject, and so he might as well just get it over with. "You wanted to know why I thought you would mind. I'm telling you." He can already hear the protest about to come from his boyfriend's mouth:  _don't do this just because you think I want you to_. Jack decides to end that argument before it starts. "I want to. I...I have to. You deserve to know and I...want to tell you."

Bitty stops trying to protest. He just nods and lets Jack explain. Not for the first time, it strikes Jack how incredible Bitty is. It makes him smile a little before he takes a deep breath and tries to keep his hands from shaking.

"So, you know Parse," Jack says.

"Bless his heart," Bitty responds, a cold undertone in his voice cutting through the seemingly innocent statement. Jack has been around Bitty long enough to know that the statement is never meant in a way that's anything less than passive aggressive. Under different circumstances, he might laugh. Instead he just quirks an eyebrow.

"Sorry. Continue."

And then it all comes out. It is both harder to say than he thought it would be and easier to say than he thought it would be. He starts with the basics. He was nineteen, Parse was his best friend, the draft was almost there. Parse was a little more than his best friend, probably. Or at least Jack had _thought_  he was. It was possible that maybe Kent wasn't even his friend at all, with the way things went.

It all happened very quickly, it had seemed at the time. They were friends and then they were something else and then they were nothing at all and then Jack was in the hospital because he screwed up and then he didn't even have hockey anymore.

At the time, Jack's anxiety had not yet evolved to the point where he felt like he had to shut down his emotions entirely. He was, for the most part, free with his emotions. Or, at least, as free with his emotions as any nineteen year old aspiring NHL player could be. That turned out to be a mistake. And the moment Jack saw his best friend's face go carefully blank when he told him how he felt about him, he knew that.

Kent wouldn't talk to him for three days straight and it kicked his anxiety into high gear. The directions on his medication told him to take them as needed, whenever he felt too out of control of his own head. It also said that he wasn't supposed to exceed more than four pills in a twenty-four hour period. But his hands were shaking and his mind was racing and his lungs were burning as he gasped for air and he forgot.  _It wasn't supposed to happen_.

When Kent came to visit him in the hospital, Jack thought that maybe they were okay again. But Kent had pretended that nothing happened, like they had never been more than two hockey players who were  _really good_ when they played on the same line. Like they  _hadn't_ spent the better part of the season in the back seat of Kent's car. Jack told him not to come back. He didn't. It was both better and worse.

But then it got better. A lot better. Jack still has a problem expressing his emotions, and he probably always will, but it is at least easier.

When Jack finishes his story, he risks a glance at Bitty. It's not what he had been expecting. Well, he isn't sure what he  _had_ been expecting, but it wasn't this. He certainly did not expect Bitty to look angry. Or say "I'm going to kill him." But that's exactly what he did.

Jack lets himself laugh at that, this time. "It's okay, Bits, I promise I'm over it."

"I'm glad you're over it, honey, but I'm still going to kill him. Well, maybe not  _kill him_ , but...he's not getting pies from me any time soon, that's for sure."

It is rather comforting to know that Bitty is outraged on his behalf. Jack is not a vindictive man, not when it comes to things which directly involve him, but it is nice to allow himself to be angry at someone other than himself. The whole thing is behind him now, and really, Jack is over it. But there is still something strangely therapeutic about sharing a mutual indignation over something that he used to blame himself for.

* * *

Tater is the one who finds out first. It's an accident, mostly. Jack had been planning on telling him for a while, because Tater actually reminded him a lot of Shitty, and Jack figured he could trust him. He and Bitty had already told the Samwell team a couple months ago, and it made the notion of telling Tater a lot easier. Still though, Jack hadn't quite planned on telling him so soon. Or in this way, at all.

Whatever Jack had planning for his big coming out to his friend, it definitely did not include Bitty half naked in his kitchen wearing one of Jack's old Samwell hockey t-shirts.

The thing is that Jack had gotten used to Bitty being around in the morning--he made the drive on long weekends or just on weekends when Jack had a game in town and Bitty didn't have any responsibilities to attend to. It was a comfortable arrangement, and at this point it was routine. Half the time, Jack found it weird when Bitty  _wasn't_ there.

So when Tater decided to drop by in the morning to go for a run with Jack, Jack didn't think about it. He sat at the table in the center of the kitchen, pulling on his shoes, and didn't think anything different when Bitty came into the room in a t-shirt that was two sizes too big for him and dropped a kiss on Jack's forehead before he poured himself a cup of coffee.

Once Jack hears Tater's light "thought you had girlfriend," however, he tenses. How could he have forgotten? He let himself get too comfortable and now it's going to blow up in his face, like usual. Now logically, Jack knows that this isn't as bad as it looks. He had already been planning on telling his teammate about Bitty, so what did it matter? Well that's the thing about anxiety: it isn't logical, no matter how much you think you've gotten it under control. It  _doesn't_ make sense, ever. It never shows up when it would be a logical reaction, it doesn't only show up when it would be beneficial to you--it shows up when it wants. It shows up when it is seven in the morning and you are sitting in your kitchen with one shoe on your foot and the other hitting the floor as your breath leaves your lungs all in a rush and you can't stop your hands from shaking no matter how tightly you tangle them in the fabric of your jacket.

And if he really thought about it Jack wouldn't have a problem. It would've been a nice, easy way to tell his friend that he was dating a man. But the thing is that Jack had a  _plan_. He knew what he was going to say and when and how, but then this happened and now it is all out of his control. And that's the thing that Jack is afraid of the most: a lack of control. It's why he has trouble telling people how he feels--he can't control their actions, he can't control how they react. He thought that maybe, at least, he would be able to control his own coming out, but it would seem that even that is not to be the case. So now here he is with his blood rushing in his ears, trying to remember how to breathe like his therapist had taught him to. It is a lot harder than he remembers it being.

Jack feels Bitty's hands come up to rest on his neck, feels his boyfriend rubbing gentle circles into the muscles with his thumbs, trying to get Jack to stop tensing up so much. It helps, a little bit; gives him something to ground himself to that isn't the uncontrollable shaking in his hands.

He is faintly aware of the sound of a chair scraping backwards as someone sits beside him, can barely hear Bitty's gentle "honey, you have to breathe, okay" over the sound of his internal panic. Distantly, he knows that. Distantly, he can feel the burning in his lungs, the lightheadedness that comes when the brain does not get enough oxygen. But he can't slow down, can't remember how to breathe steadily or how to breathe deeply enough to fill his lungs.

A voice comes from his left. "Jack, I need you to look at me." It's Bitty. Jack tries to take a deep breath and turns to meet his eyes.

"There he is," Bitty says, taking Jack's hand in his. "I want you to follow me, okay? Just breathe with me for a minute." BItty brings their joined hands up over his heart, so that Jack can feel the movements of his chest as he breathes. Jack does his best to fight the instinct to curl his fingers as hard as he can around the material of Bitty's shirt.

Bitty counts, Jack syncs his breaths with the steady rise and fall of Bitty's chest, and soon the frantic feeling in his own chest fades. In it's place is the feeling that he must look like a colossal idiot.

The first thing out of his mouth is the phrase "I'm sorry."

"It's alright, sweetheart." Jack is never going to get over that. Most people tell him not to apologize, but Bitty never does--he just accepts it, even though the look on his face says that the apology isn't necessary. It's refreshing. People telling him not to apologize just makes him more anxious, and while he knows that his anxiety isn't something he  _needs_ to be sorry for, he still is. Jack certainly doesn't want to deal with it and he's sorry when other people get dragged into it. So it is nice when someone casually accepts the apology and moves on. It makes it feel slightly more normal.

"So..." Jack jumps a little when he hears Tater's voice from across the table. Shit. He forgot he was there. He braces himself for what comes next.

"No girlfriend?" Jack is surprised by the question, but shakes his head anyway. "Boyfriend instead?" This question is accompanied with a gesture in Bitty's direction. Jack nods, grips Bitty's hand a little tighter underneath the table.

Jack feels a hand come to rest on his shoulder. "Okay."

"Okay?" that is not the response he had been expecting. even when he told Shitty, the response was something a lot more along the lines of "you absolute fucker, I'm so happy for you," and it involved a lot of hugging. This is strangely low-key.

"You are happy, yes?"

Jack looks over at Bitty to see that his boyfriend is already watching him. It makes him smile. "I am."

"Then okay." Before Jack can fully form the words in his own head, Tater says "won't tell anyone," and  _god_ does it feel good to know that his friend understands.

"Thank you." Tater waves him off, as if this is something that anyone would do for him. It isn't, but it is nice to know that Tater thinks so.

"You know," Bitty says, "I just realized that there is a guest in our kitchen and I am not wearing any pants." Jack laughs and suddenly the mood is brighter. Maybe this whole thing really won't be that hard, he thinks. For the first time in his life, he doesn't feel all that anxious.

* * *

This is quite possibly the most anxious that Jack Zimmermann has ever been. He has thought about it for a long time, has decided that it is the right choice--he  _wants_ to do it. But now that the moment is here, he feels more than a little apprehensive.

As he smooths out the fabric of his suit jacket for the fifteenth time in half as many minutes, he hears Bitty shuffle up behind him, feels his boyfriend's chin come to rest on his shoulder as a pair of arms wind themselves around his waist. "You know it doesn't matter to me, right?" Bitty asks. "If you're uncomfortable, you don't have to do this. I'll be just fine. The people that matter to me know, and that's all I need."

Bitty has been telling him this at least once a week for the past month, ever since Jack had made the decision to do this in the first place. He appreciates it, but it isn't necessary. Truth be told, Jack is tired of hiding. More than that, he is tired of hiding the best thing that has ever happened to him.

"I know, Bits," he says. "I have to do this."

Bitty's grip on Jack's waist tightens and he presses a kiss to his cheek. "Alright then, let's go."

Jack smooths out his suit one last time before he laces his fingers with Bitty's and leads them out the door. He takes a deep breath as they get into the car and he puts the keys in the ignition to start the engine. He can do this. His hands are only shaking a little bit and he only feels like he's going to throw up if he thinks about it too hard.

He'll be just fine.

* * *

Two hours later, Jack is sitting against a wall with a room full of press on the other side, waiting for George to come and tell him that it's time to go.

About a month ago, Jack had asked George to put together a meeting with the press. He had cards put together with an official statement written out. He's read the statement no less than two dozen times since he got it. He's read the statement at least five times just sitting in the little room. Bitty is sitting beside him, rubbing gentle circles into his back while they wait.

The door opens and George pops her head in. "You ready?"

Jack tries to smile through his nerves. "As I'll ever be."

"You still want to do this?" As nice a gesture as it is, Jack is tired of hearing this question. He nods without hesitation. "Okay then, let's do this Zimmermann."

As he walks out the door, Jack hears Bitty call his name. He turns to see Bitty smiling softly at him from where he sits on the small, uncomfortable bench. "I'm proud of you," he says."

* * *

Jack is sitting behind a table, a room full of reporters in front of him and a stack of index cards on the table. He doesn't really need them, he has the statement practically memorized already. The thing is, with the reporters in front of him, waiting for him to speak, he doesn't really  _want_ to read the statement.

He thought that having it written out would be easier, would give him some sort of control. Now he just thinks that it will make the whole thing sound scripted, rehearsed. If it does, it would not be wrong. He  _has_ rehearsed it, what seems like a million times, in front of the mirror in his bedroom, Bitty sitting on the bed behind him and lending encouraging smiles whenever their eyes met in the reflection. But it didn't feel like enough. It felt like it would fall short. He was in love with a man, for god's sake, not presenting the new year's budget at a business meeting. It was more than a little ridiculous that he had a script.

With little more than that, Jack pushes the cards away from him on the table. It looks like he is just going to have to come out with it, pardon the turn of phrase. He takes a deep breath and looks out at the audience.

"So it looks like a lot of you have been wondering about this 'girl' of mine that the rest of the guys  have been talking about." The press responds well to that, practically scrambling in their seats to hear what he says about "his girl" next.

"I don't have one." The press looks disappointed, confused.

One blonde woman in the front speaks up, voicing the question in everyone else's head. "So, just to clarify, you are  _not_ dating anyone, currently?"

Jack can feel his heart pounding in his chest as he considers what he'll say next, but he smiles through it, tries to look more confident than he actually is at the moment.

"No, I am."

The press looks even more confused and Jack knows that if Shitty were here, then he would probably have a lot to say about the "rampant heteronormativity within the world of professional sports." That thought, paired with the confused faces on the reporters in front of him, makes him laugh.

"My boyfriend is in the next room." He puts an extra emphasis on the word  _boyfriend_ , to make sure that everybody hears him clearly. "His name is Eric Bittle and I've probably been in love with him since at least the first time he played on my line at Samwell. Even though I didn't know it at the time."

There is a short pause, silence hanging thick in the air before the crowd erupts. Questions are being hurled at him left, right, and center, and for the first time in his life, Jack isn't overwhelmed. He doesn't care. It's not important.

What  _is_ important is the fact that Bitty is waiting for him in the room next door. What is truly important is that he can hold his boyfriend's hand in the middle of a crowded street without caring who sees them.

Jack finds that maybe he kind of likes letting people know how he feels. It's still not always all that easy, but it is getting better. He likes it.

**Author's Note:**

> the working titles for this project include:
> 
> 1\. Jack Zimmermann Angst Hour (TM)
> 
> 2\. gabby can't write dialogue!
> 
> 2\. only those I really love will ever really know me (thanks lukas graham ayy what up)
> 
> 3\. gabby effectively slam dunks the "hockey robot" trope straight into the garbage, where it will hopefully never be seen or heard from ever again
> 
> (the title that is currently being used was taken from zayn's "lucozade")
> 
> aaaaaaaaaaand a small note for the readers: I was supposed to write tater as gay, but that opened up like a million and one different possibilities to take the plot further and this was ultimately supposed to be about jack and his anxiety, so because of that I had to nix it. for the record, however, all of the falconers are gay and that's that, sorry I don't make the rules.


End file.
